Muslims/Arabs for Israel

Davka, this week I heard two Arab Muslims, born and raised here, state unequivocally that Israeli rule is what they want.

I work with Arabs in Yafiz, Sha'ar Binyamin, which is connected to the Rami Levy Discount Supermarket chain. When I accepted the job I had no idea that I'd be working with and dealing with Arabs. I needed a job,and the manager of the branch said that she wanted me to join and work with her.  To be honest, I don't mind working with and dealing with all the Arabs who come to Sha'ar Binyamin. First of all, if they work or shop in a Jewish store, they have passed an important test as far as I'm concerned. The PA-Palestinian Authority periodically persecutes them in all sorts of ways. That's the reason the amount of Arab customers goes up and down. The Arabs who work here enjoy the salary and benefits, which are far superior to what they could get in Arab business, unless they're "on the take."

Early in the week, I attended David Bedein's Israel Advocacy Day, in which Bassam Eid gave one of his amazing talks. Click here for the video. Bassam Eid is very public about his support for Israel and assistance that Israeli sovereignty would be best for Arabs.

I view the Arabs who work and shop in places like Rami Levy/Yafiz, Sha'ar Binyamin (and similar businesses and shopping areas) as agreeing with Eid, voting with their "feet," or should I say wallet.

More on the customers I meet at work:

The other day a family came into the shoe store. I suddenly realized that they were speaking a mishmash of Arabic and Hebrew, except for one child who consistently stuck to very slang-filled Hebrew, like any ordinary Israeli of his age. I began to wonder if they were among those very ambitious Arab families who try to get their kids comfortable in Hebrew, so they can "pass." I had one of those a while ago; they said they live in Pisgat Zeev and pushed the kids to speak Hebrew with me. After choosing a few pairs of shoes, they relaxed and told me the story. One of the parents had a Jewish father whose deathbed wish was that they return to his people, who are kinder and better than the Arabs.
The family decided to take that advice and aren't sorry. I was told how wonderful and generous Israel has been to them. They are in the process of converting now. (Their details disguised since I didn't get permission to tell story.)

This morning I saw a related article in the Jerusalem Post about a Muslim who is in favor of Israel.

'I was the campus anti-Semite,' says reformed Muslim Zionist
Hafeez, 32, is a British Muslim of Pakistani origin whose full time job now, is working as the Outreach Coordinator for Christians United for Israel. But some ten years ago, he was busy making noise on his own campus, in the opposite direction: "If Israel even sneezed in the wrong direction we were protesting. We held events with speakers who were blatantly anti-Semitic, but we couched it by saying they were anti-Zionist. I was generally obnoxious, loud and threatening," he admits.

When it seems like the whole world is against us, against the State of Israel and Jewish Rights to our Holy Land, it is so refreshing and encouraging to see that we do have support. Things aren't s black as we think.

Today is Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av, the first day of the Jewish Month of Av, which is now a time of mourning. Chazal, our sages, tell us that when we are redeemed, when the Moshiach comes, the mourning days of this month will be days of joy. May it happen במהירה בימינו bimhaira biyameinu,  "speedily in our days..." Gd willing!

BDS Equals Collective Punishment!

There's nothing more discriminatory, irrational, hypocritical, illogical, antisemitic and immoral than the BDS movement. The instigators and followers work hard at branding it as a moral peaceful movement, but the truth is the exact opposite. The actual aim of BDS is the delegitimization of the State of Israel. It's that simple.

Demonstrators gathered outside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's office on June 9, 2016 to denounce his executive order targeting the BDS movement [Sainatee Suarez/Al Jazeera]

"Boycotting Peace by Fred Taub provides eloquent proof that those advocating boycotting Israel and the divestment from the Israeli economy are not only not interested in arriving at peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, but have only one interest, and that is the destruction of the State of Israel. They are enemies of peace in the Middle East. From this kind of hate campaign against Israel it is only a small step to blatant anti-Semitism, a step that most of these Israel-bashers take without hesitation.   This is a very important and timely book." - Moshe Arens, Ambassador, former Israel Defense Minister, Professor

They certainly don't let facts get in their way. The BDS people will say and do anything to make Israel look bad. And they don't care if the fallout from their campaigns harm Arabs living in Israel, like those who lost their jobs when Sodastream buckled to their pressures and moved their factory from Samaria.

David Bedein speaking at ISRAEL ADVOCACY  DAY

This week I attended David Bedein's fascinating ISRAEL ADVOCACY DAY where I heard a number of excellent speakers, Noam Bedein, Arnon Groiss, Bassem Eid, David Bedein and Arlene Kushner give information you won't hear in other places, certainly not in the mainstream media.


One thing the media, NGOs and politicians ignore was brought up by Bassem Eid, founder and director of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, who stated with great emphasis was that Arabs prefer living under Israeli rule. They don't want to live under the PA-Palestinian Authority.

Yehoshua Friedman, the Goyishe Rebbi,
with David Bedein. 

Arlene Kushner

There was a nice crowd of people of all ages attending. I enjoyed the talks and chance to see old friends. I highly recommend attending David's programs and keeping up with his and Arlene's informative sites.

Is Gaza Part of the P.A. Palestinian Authority?

Many people and countries have been trying to distinguish between Fatah and Hamas, Gaza and the P.A., Khaled Mashal/Ismail Haniya and Abbas, Arab Muslim terror and peaceful Islam sic etc. But it really seems that they are all sides of the same coin as the cliche goes.

This morning there's an interesting article on the complaints of Gaza in the Jerusalem Post:
Hamas accuses PA of neglecting Gaza Strip

Hamas officials on Thursday accused the Palestinian Authority government of turning its back on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and called for rescinding the last reconciliation agreement between the two parties.
Hamas’s fury came in response to the PA government’s announcement that it would not pay salaries to civil servants employed by Hamas since it took control over the Gaza Strip in 2007.
The government said it would not be able to fulfill its responsibilities toward the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip unless it’s allowed to regain full control over the area

It makes me wonder... And also, it's already 2015, and Hamas has been ruling there, even according to the article since 2007. So, nu, why this complaint now? Have all these international bodies been supporting the unabashedly terrorist Hamas all this time?

Shilling for Islamic Terrorists

A few months ago I attended a riveting information seminar organized by David Bedein of Israel Resource Review/Israel Behind the News. One of the speakers was Bassam Eid of Activists for Human Rights in the Palestinian Authority, an Arab who made it very clear that the Arabs of Ramalla and the Arabs of Gaza are not of the same culture and society, certainly not the same people. His words constantly come to my mind when I see articles like this one in the Jerusalem Post.

Think about it...

Peres and Herzog Totally Re-Writing History

Barely twenty-four hours after hearing Bassam Eid of Activists for Human Rights in the Palestinian Authority at the Israel Advocacy Seminar run by David Bedein, with the assistance of Gail Winston and the "Winston Israel News" in memory of her late husband Manny, I heard former President Shimon Peres and soon after him, Issak Herzog, head of the Israeli opposition and Leftist Labor Party leader on television spouting the exact opposite.

Now, what did Bassam Eid say? 

Bassam Eid ended his talk saying that the Arabs of Gaza and the Arabs of the West Bank are not the same. They don't have the same customs, accent etc. The two groups shouldn't be considered as one.

Isaac Herzog and Shimon Peres Photo: Mark Neiman/GPO

And what did I hear from Peres and Herzog*?  

They claim that Mahmoud Abbas should be ruling both "the west bank" and Gaza. Somehow Gaza was taken away from him. 

There are a few very peculiar things here. One is that Bassam Eid is an Arab who calls himself a Palestinian, and he does not consider Gaza as part of the west bank/Palestine. If the Arabs really consider it all one "people," then I think that Eid would know and make the point. But his point is that Gazans are separate/different.  I wonder how many of you consider that rather interesting and can be proof of...  (Please comment if that makes you begin to wonder...)

*It's clear that Peres and Herzog's statements about Gaza being politically part of the "west bank" on the same day were no coincidence. When I was looking for a photo of the two of them, I found one that illustrated an article in the Jerusalem Post that stresses the close connection between the two men. It even calls Peres the "mentor" of Herzog. That doesn't surprise me especially considering what Herzog also said on television. Very much in the mold of Shimon Peres he did his best to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu talking of how he would do a much better job running the war.

This war isn't yet over, and the Left has begun to campaign against the government.

Unbelievably Difficult Challenge for Pro-Israel Students on Campuses

Yesterday, I met, listened to, spoke to and observed a few dozen young campus activists who were trying to learn and absorb tools to enable them to not only cope with the terrible malignant anti-Israel atmosphere in university campuses around the world, but to try to find the magic potion to change the minds of the enemy Arab activists they study with. Yes, that's a very difficult, almost insurmountable challenge even for the most knowledgeable expert in history, psychology, propaganda and public relations.

I attended the Israel Advocacy Seminar run by David Bedein, with the assistance of Gail Winston and the "Winston Israel News" in memory of her late husband Manny.

The seminar was organized to help the students mostly on foreign campuses throughout the world, although it was attended by people of all ages. Today we are all in a position to advocate for Israel. That is the beauty of social media.  Even a simple email gives one a very powerful tool. I spoke to the group about blogging, telling them that with a blog they own and run their own internet newspaper or magazine. It can be done without expending any money. You don't even need a computer. A tablet or smartphone will do the trick.


Considering that I'm old enough to be the grandmother of the students, I was very curious about the world they live in. They were pretty quiet when given the opportunity to question Noam Bedein of the Sederot Media Center,

Nobody asked Bassam Eid of Activists for Human Rights in the Palestinian Authority the question that ran through my mind about the legitimacy of the term "Palestinian" after hearing what he had to say. Bli neder, not an oath, I'll blog about that in another post.

The speaker who really woke them up was the factual and blunt Sha'i Ben Tekoa, author of the invaluable book Phantom Nation: Inventing the "Palestinians" as the Obstacle to Peace. His invaluable information was received by many as if it was a diagnosis of cancer. Today's young students were there to get an easy to swallow pill to counteract the anti-Israel atmosphere, professors and activists on campus, and Sha'i informed them that there was no easy cure. No simple pill, slogan or formula. They begged him. They argued with him.

I just wanted to cry, to hug them. 
Kids, the world hates us. You're not going to change them. All we can do for you is to try to make you stronger and clarify the facts.

There were also older participants who couldn't or wouldn't accept the simple fact that it's useless and dangerous to negotiate with the Arabs, since their word can't be trusted. I agree with Sha'i Ben Tekoa that this is a fact and not racism.

Sha'i gave the history, well-documented, about the myth, lie, fallacy of Arab Palestine. I strongly suggest reading his book or getting him as a speaker in English or Hebrew. Certainly check out his site. And listen to him here, which is the basic talk he gave to us.


I didn't stay until the end of the program, my loss for sure.